In commercial trailer loading, once a trailer door is opened, the trailer ‘load’ is considered open, and when the door is closed, the trailer ‘load’ is considered closed. These ‘load open’ and ‘load closed’ values are often used to demarcate one trailer loading sequence from another. Typical methods for recording these values rely on either manual entry or customer data feed integration. These methods, however, can be problematic for at least the reasons that they can be inefficient, costly, error prone, and untimely.
Accordingly, there exists a need for improved, automated means of detecting and reporting a trailer door status for use in settings such as, for example, loading docks. Additionally, there is a need to optimize such means to perform efficiently.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.